In 2015B, LUCI1 out and LUCI2 in!

LUCI2 on its way to its right bent Cassegrain focal station 

After slightly more than 5 years of operation, LUCI1, the first in the pair of LBT's near infrared imager/multi-object spectrograph instruments, will leave the telescope at the end of the semester to be upgraded (new software, new detector, additional camera to enable diffraction limited imaging and spectroscopy).

Therefore, LUCI2 will be offered for science in seeing limited mode in 2015B. While LUCI2 has a different user interface and a different scripting tool from LUCI1, its detector has a 60% higher quantum efficiency: a huge improvement well worth the pain of learning for PIs and observers!

The AO commissioning of LUCI2 has also made good progress, though hampered by bad weather earlier in the semester and the priority given during the last commissioning run to seeing limited mode checkout, thus ensuring that LUCI2 will be ready for science for 15B. We should be able to commission LUCI2 in AO mode before the end of 2015B.

Stay tuned for more news on LUCI2 as we prepare documentation on observing and scripting over the summer. 

LUCI1 (right) and LUCI2 (left) on the telescope

A LUCI2 seeing-limited image of Westerhout 3, a star forming region 6200 light-years away - K band - FWHM: 0.54”